Aggregation of data from 4 clinical studies demonstrating efficacy of single-dose doxycycline postexposure for prevention of the spirochetal infections: Lyme disease, syphilis, and tick-borne relapsing fever

Gary P Wormser; Stephen Warshafsky; Paul Visintainer

doi:10.1016/j.diagmicrobio.2020.115293

Aggregation of data from 4 clinical studies demonstrating efficacy of single-dose doxycycline postexposure for prevention of the spirochetal infections: Lyme disease, syphilis, and tick-borne relapsing fever

Diagn Microbiol Infect Dis. 2021 Apr;99(4):115293. doi: 10.1016/j.diagmicrobio.2020.115293. Epub 2020 Dec 13.

Authors

Gary P Wormser¹, Stephen Warshafsky², Paul Visintainer³

Affiliations

¹ Division of Infectious Diseases, New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY, USA. Electronic address: gwormser@nymc.edu.
² Department of Medicine, New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY, USA.
³ Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, MA, USA.

PMID: 33360515
DOI: 10.1016/j.diagmicrobio.2020.115293

Abstract

Single-dose doxycycline, given within 72 hours of exposure, has been evaluated in 4 clinical studies for postexposure prophylaxis of 3 spirochetal infections: Lyme disease, syphilis, and tick-borne relapsing fever. In this study, data from the 4 studies were aggregated using a meta-analytic random-effects approach, with the DerSimonian-Laird method for variance estimation, analyzing a total of 2468 subjects. The findings of this analysis demonstrated an overall efficacy rate for prevention of the 3 spirochetal infections of 78% (95% confidence interval: 50%-91%).

Keywords: Doxycycline; Lyme disease; Prophylaxis; Spirochetal infections; Syphilis.

MeSH terms

Anti-Bacterial Agents / therapeutic use*
Doxycycline / therapeutic use*
Humans
Lyme Disease / drug therapy*
Post-Exposure Prophylaxis*
Relapsing Fever / drug therapy*
Syphilis / drug therapy*

Substances

Anti-Bacterial Agents
Doxycycline